Shrinkflation!?

Op-Ed by Guest Contributor Eloise Wright

Stores and their staff are constantly out to screw you these days, and whoo-boy, they really do get you coming and going. Not only are they jacking up their prices, but what you get for your money ain’t all it used to be neither. 

Take for instance this thing of spinach I got at The Kroger the other day. Thing was the size of a cinder block. However, when I put it all in a pan with some oil to cook it up, it amounted to no more than a couple of mouthfuls. This is a sales technique where retailers give you less than they did before called “shrinkflation”, which is a stupid word because half of it means to decrease and the other half means to increase.

[Editor’s note: No it doesn’t. “flation” denotes change in size while prefixes like “in” or “de” signify an increase or decrease respectively.]

Really it’s just an excuse to give you less than you paid for. And not true, deflation means undoing an inflation. Additionally there is nothing "respective" about leaving notes on my manuscript trying to make me look stupid! No, it’s quite disrespective indeed!

[Editor’s note: Okay, do we really need content this badly?]

For answers to this grave injustice I went straight to the source of the problem: The store employees.

When reached for comment, Gus, manager of The Kroger, was overheard saying “Oh god, not this woman again!” before making an official statement of “Are you actually serious?”.

Patrick, who works in the produce section, tried to gaslight me, probably at the behest of his corporate overlords, by saying “Spinach just shrinks when you cook it, it’s like 90% water or something.”

So that’s just about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. First of all, it’s a solid vegetable, it's clearly not water. Secondly of all, so water magically disappears and makes a solid object get smaller? Yeah, okay, maybe watch a science YouTube while you absentmindedly stock the potatoes. The kids they got working here these days, I swear…

I also spoke to some of the other customers shopping at this store at 11am on a Tuesday to find out what they thought.

“I get the Duke’s meat sticks,” says one customer named Paul maybe, I didn’t ask his name. “A bag used to last me all week, but now it only lasts four or five days because I started eating one every night while watching the late shows. A bag don’t last as long as it used to and that’s sad.”

Truth to that, as the kids say.

“Did you see at the bakery,” says this other woman, let’s call her Betsy, “that they take the holes out of the donuts and sell them separately now? Such a rip off. Those holes are part of the donut! They should be included in the price!”

Amen, sister!

“Could you please get out of my way, I’m just trying to shop here, I don't care about your spinach or whatever,” says this one jerk after I stepped into his path because he refused to talk to me the first two times I asked his opinion.

Well, it seems there are no answers for me here at The Kroger as I’ve now been escorted out for supposedly harassing customers even though I am a customer. Also, the only one who’s been harassed is me by the lack of accountability, spinach, and actual cashiers (that’s not relevant here, it just bothers me) at this store.

For a place that’s supposed to sell food to customers, they sure are comfortable leaving this one hungry.

[Editor’s note: Please don’t ask this woman to contribute ever again.]